[Bent] Bent Digest, Vol 50, Issue 3

[Dan Kinch]

John-- 
Yes, for the US overall, there are more personal cars and light trucks than people. Last year for the first time, there were fewer cars than the year before--there was a decline of some 4 million vehicles. I don't think that happened even during the Depression.

As for the household stat, it was something that the Bloomberg administration discovered in making the case for congestion pricing and/or charging tolls on all East River crossings. Commuter cycle advocates have been making the case for a highly ramped up city cycling push for years, but the PlaNYC proposal crunched the numbers and did it for them. Basically, the city's subway system is at capacity--there's no way to add more trains during rush hour. And the traffic grid is too overwhelmed with private cars to add more surface transport. If city population grows by 1 million residents in the next 20 years (pretty much a certainty), the city would need almost $30 billion to add sufficient subway and bus capacity. Therefore, if the city spent a few million to put more bike-friendly policies in place sufficient to get at least 100,000 people out of cars and subways, it's saving big big money. As it stands, a single bike commuter is saving the city and state
 $1,000+ a year in MTA subsidies and even more in unrecovered costs for car commutes.

Those interested in the issues can do a search on www.streetsblog.org and www.transalt.org . The breakout of the issues can be found if you google 'planyc'--the city report is probably still online and may be revisited at some point.

I apologize as this is somewhat OT. I've been advocating for commuter cycling for the last six years--I was responsible for getting bike commuter racks put into the building at my last job. 

Our Finnish friends are from a culture where their traffic commissioners have done this kind of homework and determined the costs of various commute options. Most of Europe never had a 'car culture' because most of Europe didn't have access to cheap oil. 




________________________________
From: JOHN TETZ <jgtetz at msn.com>
To: NY/NJ/CT/PA Metro Area Recumbent Society (MARS) <bent at list.marsride.org>
Sent: Tue, January 12, 2010 10:36:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Bent] Bent Digest, Vol 50, Issue 3


Dan Wrote;

>three out of five NYC households do not own a car. 
.......That’s interesting stats. I heard that for the rest of the US there are more cars than people. 

John Tetz 


      
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